Mary was a little girl and she lived with her parents in Africa. Her parents had gotten tired of the neighbors always complaining to them about their daughter, who was naughty and disrespectful to others. To change the situation, the father told Mary a story of a thief who would come and take away the parents of a bad child to take care of a better child and leave the bad child alone.

    However Mary went on with her ways. One day she made fun of an old blind man on her way to school. On hearing this, her parents thought of a new plan.

    The next day Mary came back from school. To her surprise, nobody was at home. It was getting dark but neither of her parents showed up. The little girl started to wonder where they were. Suddenly she remembered the story. Mary began to cry, for she thought she would never see them again. While she was crying, the door opened and her parents came in. She ran to them and asked, “Where have you been? I thought the thief had taken you away.”

    “He did but he let us go and told us to come back home because he knows you are going to be a good girl. He told us that if you are still a bad girl, he will come back for us,” they told her.

    “I am a good girl now and I promise never to be bad again because I don't want him to take you away from me.” Mary's words made her parents very happy. From that day on, Mary has never misbehaved again.

任务一：判断下列句子正误。

任务二：回答问题。

阅读下列短文,从每小题所给的A、B、C、D四个选项中选出一个最佳选项。

    Sarasota, Florida teen band The Garbage-Men is performing on the stage. The band has five members. They are Jack Berry, Ollie Gray, Harrison Paparatto, Austin Siegel and Evan Tucker. The five teens are making music from waste. The Garbage-Men band's instruments are made from recycled things. The guitars are boxes. A horn(号) is made from pipes. The keyboard is formed from old bottles.

    The band started about two years ago. Jack Berry who was in eighth grade at the time decided to make a playable, home-made guitar, after some trial-and-error(反复试验), he ended up building it from a cereal box, a yardstick and toothpicks. After Jack showed his creation to his friend Ollie Gray, Ollie had the idea to form a band using other home-made instruments as a way to improve recycling. “We want to show people there is more to recycling than throwing things away in the bin.” Jack, 16, told TFK. “You can actually reuse materials.”

    The Garbage-Men plays at local events around Sarasota, including festivals, farmer's markets and community fundraisers. Typically, the teens will set up on the street and perform popular songs from the 1960s, including classic Beatles tunes and crowd favorite “Wipe Out,” by The Surfaris. In between sets, they talk about recycling and offer tips for how to help the environment. While they perform, Jack's little brother Trent, 11, gives out flyers(宣传单) about recycling and helps sell the band's CDs and other musical products.

    The band donates(捐赠) the money from sales to charity. They have raised more than $2,500 for Heifer International. The organization gives farm animals, seeds and agricultural(农业的) training to people in poor countries to help end poverty and hunger. “It's a good, sustainable-development (持续发展的)charity,” Jack says, “By donating one animal, you help the whole community.”

    The band, all tenth graders, tries to play a show every week. They've also played on a Tampa, Florida radio station and auditioned(试演) for America's Got Talent. The teens hope to eventually take their shows on the road by touring in other states. “Music is a really good way to get a good message across to people because it's really accessible(可接近的),” Jack says. Their instruments may be rubbish, but their message isn't.

    In 1996, Joe Richman had been working as a radio reporter on US national radio for several years and was looking for a new idea for a radio programme. He met a teenager called John Cutler. John had Tourette's Syndrome—a brain illness. This meant that Josh did not always have control of his movements and speech.

    John was just beginning high school when he agreed to work with Joy on a story about his illness. Joe wanted John to keep a radio diary of his daily life. He gave John a tape recorder and asked him to record what happened to him every day. John and Joe agreed that an important part of his story would be talking to his school friends about Tourette's Syndrome. John was embarrassed(尴尬) to record at school—his friends might laugh.

    One day, John took the tape recorder to school, but he kept it inside his bag all day. He was too afraid to bring it out. After months of feeling afraid, he took the tape recorder out on lunch time. What happened next was a total surprise. John tells it best:“Everyone jumped at the chance. Everyone started asking me questions about that, I had never really talking about it to anyone—except my mom and dad. ”

    That was an important day in John's life because he learned to be more open about his condition. Now John says he wants to do radio diaries until he's 80 years old. He learnt a lot about himself by doing the radio diary. It made a great radio programme, too. Being a reporter is like having a passport. You can ask questions, be curious and explore new worlds. Radio is the perfect way to be on the radio and everyone likes to listen!

TO DO: Let go of the list

Dear Disappointed,

    I know how you feel! For spring break, my family visited my cousins Sam and Kate. It was a long drive, so I had lots of time to make plans for the world's best vacation.

   "You have been writing for a while!" said my dad." Are you working on the next great American novel?" "Maybe tomorrow!" I joked. "Now, I'm making a list of things to do with Sam this week." Because Sam is my age. We usually hang out when we all get together, while Tex and Indi play with Kate.

    When we finally arrived, I went to find Sam." How about checking out the lake?" I said. "Nah, "said Sam." I have something more fun for us to do." "Awesome" I said, prepared to start checking off activities on my list. Sam turned on his computer." Which bat do you want to be?" Which bat?" I repeated." I got the best new computer game called Bat Adventure." Sam explained," Bats are the coolest creatures, you can learn all interesting facts about bats."

   "Um, this looks fun" I said, "but it's not exactly on my to-do list." "All the things I want to do this week." I explained, "are all outside." "Oh, that's cool." Sam said." You do your thing. And I'll just restart the game in one player mode."

    I wandered out of the room. And Kate called. "Zona, are you coming to play soccer with us?" "Sure, I guess for a minute," I said. Kicking the ball gently in Kate's direction. Kate gave the ball a huge kick. Pow! Tex ran after it.

   "Shhh," whispered Tex, pointing at a hole. We saw two little fuzzy bats! They had mousy ears and their wings were spread." Goodness!" I laughed." Let's show Sam. He knows all about bats." Sure enough. Sam was really excited about our discovery. Later that day. We all looked up bat facts on Sam's computer.

    I managed to do only a couple of things on my list that week. But I had some other great experience that I wouldn't trade for anything. So dear Disappointed, even though it's helpful to have lists, it's also good to stay open-minded. Life almost never goes exactly the way you plan. So if you are open to the possibilities, something even better can pop up out of nowhere and totally make your day.

Arizona

    Hello, my name is Lucy Green. I have a big family. My favorite number is seven. My Wechat number is 7790-2728. I have a blue skirt. I like the skirt very much.

    My parents are in Shanghai. My Grandma's telephone number852770.She has a grey skirt. My grandpa Jill doesn't have a phone. My sister Mary and I live in Hangzhou with our parents. This is Mary's pencil. It is red. Her QQ number is. 790723674